Visit to Palm Springs, CA

Just back from Palm Springs where I was visiting and working with my friend Elliott Night. I got to meet and love the wonderful Rosebud who is the sweetest, silkiest cat I have ever known. She's a Cornish Rex, so yes, she looks "different" but in person it really works. She is a light little thing who can sleep on top of you and never cut off your circulation. The last morning of my stay she had a little episode and slid off the top of the espresso machine. (It's warm and she loves to snooze up there.) Well, I was doing a photo shoot with her, one of many, and she stood and slid and tumbled onto the stuff on the counter. Unfortunately, I stood there gaping in shock but Elliott gathered her up and clucked in dismay in a most motherly display of concern. Her back leg seemed hurt so of course we were both imagining different but equally awful outcomes. But, within a few minutes she was racing around the house to her delight and our relief.

So what were we working on?.....Here's the scoop...Elliott helps me with all things computer. And all things that have to do with the class proposals I submit for my teaching jobs. If there is something in a workshop description that is weird, incredibly enthusiastic, or otherwise not recognizable as something I might say....that's Elliott.

Our focus for this visit was to start designing an online course for me to teach. It is going to be a comprehensive course on Paste Paper .We have the outline, I have the content in my head, heart, and hands and hopefully this summer we will get it online. We are excited and looking forward to spending time together producing this first course.

We had some time to play and explored the many many thrift stores and junk shops which is something we both love to do. In the future you may see me wearing a black smock that I thought would be a great alternative to an apron while doing art work. Then I unpinned the cleaning tag that was over the label and saw it was a designer item and now I am thinking pearls and dinner out!

A highlight of the trip was getting to spend some time with Terri, Elliott's partner. We went hiking in Joshua Tree Park and basked in the beauty of the desert, the rock formations and the blue blue sky. They took me to Noah Purifoy's (http://www.noahpurifoy.com/ ), a site in the desert where Noah created...what.....giant assemblages/installations out of "junk". Who knew cafeteria trays impaled on re bar could be so interesting? Elliott's favorite piece is a metal tintype of the Declaration of Independence attached to a huge rock that has been suspended over big sheets of glass. At some point the desert will wear away the chains holding the rock and it will fall shattering the glass and sending it flying. I really liked getting to be in Noah's world for a while.

And am grateful to be able to visit Elliott's world and to play with her loves, Terri and Rosebud. They all made me feel so welcome and shared the time and space and themselves so generously. Life is very good indeed.